Ash Wednesday Revised Common Lectionary Readings and Hymns

If you visit this site regularly, you may have noticed that posts often relate to news events or holidays, usually through a quote from or review of a related book. One of the most popular of these was last year’s Ash Wednesday post (“What do the ashes on Ash Wednesday mean?”), based on Marc Foley’s A Season of Rebirth: Daily Meditations for Lent (New City, $12.95, paperback) www.newcitypress.com, back in the Top Ten today. (It’s beating that Marv Albert Super Bowl quote by the equivalent of a 56-0 postseason blowout.) I couldn’t find a similar book this year, so here instead is a link to Hymn Site‘s readings from the Revised Common Lectionary for Ash Wednesdaywww.hymnsite.com/lection/index.shtml. Click on the “Calendar” page on that site and then on “Ash Wednesday” to get the readings (which you can read or listen to).

One of Hymn Site’s suggested hymns for today is Charles Wesley’s great “Ye Servants of God,” inspired partly by the persecution of English Methodists in the 18th century. I can’t link directly to that hymn on Hymn Site, so here’s a direct link to the version on Cyber Hymnal www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/y/s/yservofg.htm. You’ll hear music as soon as you click on that link. You can find other suggested hymns by searching for “Lent” on Cyber Hymnal.